i only want what i can't have
by Poisoned Scarlet
Summary: For Resbang 2014. "Best friends help each other however they can, right?" – In which Maka Albarn initiates a friends-with-benefits arrangement with close friend, Soul Evans, and through a series of sexual mishaps, realizes they may not be so different in their wants after all.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Soul Eater.

**i only want what i can't have**  
>by. <em>Poisoned Scarlett<em>

Soul believed the hardest part of this entire agreement would be getting Maka _out of her clothes. _

Turns out he was wrong.

"What's the entire _point_ if you're gonna' hide under the sheets?!"

Maka pinks and hunkers down, narrowing her eyes at him. "I-I'm not _hiding!"_

Soul gives the sheet wrapped around her shoulders a candid look.

Maka flushes but huffs at the teasing grin that curls his lips right after. "I—just want to make sure you're really in this! If you're doing this because you feel obligated to or—!"

"I'm _not _doing this because I feel obligated to, Maka, m'doing it coz I want to help you out—of my _own_ _will_," Soul cuts her off before she can say anything more on the matter. It's a topic that's been touched far too much as it is; he's _sure, _but now he's dubious _she's sure _of this_._ "It wasn't cool of you to shoulder all that stress like that, without telling—anyone, basically." His eyes trace down her exposed side. He looks away when she shifts and the sheet covers her again. He is sitting on the edge of his mattress, stripped down to his boxers, and she is naked underneath his comforter. His bedside lamp barely lights his bedroom; it's dim enough where he can get around, but not enough to know for certain if her thigh was _really _covered or not. "You said it yourself: best friends help each other however they can….right?"

"I-I did, but this is all backwards, I didn't mean it that way!" Maka protests, burying her face in his comforter. She doesn't know how Liz convinced her to take up his offer; she doesn't know _why _Soul offered in the first place. He's her best friend. He doesn't owe her this; no one does, ever. She's just really afraid of messing this up just because of a _suggestion _that had sounded, in her sleep-deprived desperation at the time, pretty reasonable. "Soul, let's be honest: this can't be right, we're not even—this isn't even—!" She flusters.

"It doesn't _have _to be romantic," Soul interrupts, sharply. He swallows the lump in his throat. He knows it's wrong; they're crossing a line friends (_best friends)_ should never cross. He doesn't know if he can erase his presence—his feelings—beyond that border if things go awry. But he's willing to take a risk because even if he cannot erase his touch from her body, he can pretend he has. He can pretend just as well as Maka can—even better, he thinks wanly, because he grew up in a social sphere where pretending was how one managed to get around successfully. "Sex isn't always about romance, y'know, it doesn't have to be."

"We're not having sex!" Maka immediately protests.

"I'm getting you _off_."

Maka flushes. "B-but isn't sex! You're just…going to…" She struggles then sighs. "This _is_ a form of sex, isn't it?"

"Not shit Sherlock," Soul snorts. "I'm going to eat you out, that's oral sex. We learned about this in high school."

"Shut up!"

"What? It's true!"

"You don't have to say it so bluntly!"

"You did _worksheets!_"

Maka shoots him a dark look that softens, her green eyes lowering to his incredibly soft sheets. She grips his comforter closer to her naked body before sneaking a glance at Soul. He has his elbows on his knees, not looking at her as she had ordered him to when he walked into his bedroom. He's the only one she trusts with this and that's why she's doing it. He had overheard a conversation that should have never been in the first place, but his offer had been completely of his own volition. She doesn't know why he asked, doesn't want to think about it, because it hurts and she doesn't want to hurt, she wants to _feel good and pretend they're in love. _

And if that isn't a sign of how her parents fucked up marriage messed with her, she doesn't know what is. Maka inhales, calms herself—she's better than her father.. She's sure that if anyone else but Soul had offered her this chance, she would have shut them down. Liz's suggestion sounded nice in theory; in practice, it made Maka blanch.

But Soul—he _never_ made her blanch, he _never_ made her feel low, bad, weak or afraid; he was comfort in human form, he was—

_Home, _her treacherous mind whispers, but she swallows the word and stuffs it away like all the other times.

"If you ever want to stop," Maka begins. "Tell me. We can talk about it and figure something out from there. This is a big step."

"I won't stop," Soul finally looks at her. The dim light swims in his burgundy eyes, illuminating them a gentle shade. Maka has to rip her gaze away from his, heart in her throat. "If _you _wanna' stop, though, just tell me. Uh, do we make up a safety word just in case?"

"This isn't anything _that _extreme!"

"Nooo," Soul smirks, relieved for the usual tension between them. "But I'm _pretty_ sure I can make you scream—!" He winces when Maka whacks him on the head, hissing at him to watch his tongue before she postponed their tryst.

"I'll just push you away if I feel uncomfortable," Maka states briskly, nodding more firmly after. "I'll tell you to stop, too."

"Alright," Soul takes a deep breath, turning to her. "We'll take it slow." His bedroom is big and soundproof and he has the best bed (a king to her twin) suited for what they are about to do. Or, rather, what _he_ is about to do to her because Maka had insisted they not have penetrative sex. But Soul doesn't mind; he has never minded, he doesn't even mind being a virgin at twenty one despite his cool guy image, despite the rumors of his many conquests. He's fine with rumors, he's fine with images, but with Maka it is has always been _real_ and raw and painful and he will take what he can get, whenever he can. The world can shape him into whatever image they want, so long as Maka knew who he truly was, Soul didn't really care about others.

_Selfish_, comes to mind as he clenches his cold hand, eyes taking a headier look as they drink in Maka's curled up form, her wide doe eyes and pretty pink cheeks—pretty pink lips, parted, her throat jerking with every thick swallow, the sheet falling from her shoulder—creamy pale skin that he wants to worship with soft touches, wants to press down into his mattress and feel flush under his palm.

He just wants something he can't have and if this is the closest he will come to it, if this is how he can make her happy until he figures out a better way to, he'll take what he can get.

"Lie on your back," Soul tells her, falling on his knees by the edge of the bed. Maka looks at him nervously, cheeks going from pink to red. He grins a lazy grin that makes her blush harder. "If you were ugly, I wouldn't even consider this," and catches the comforter when she balls it up and throws it at him with a screech of his name.

"What? If _I_ were ugly, you wouldn't consider it, either!" He pulls it off his face and his smile leaves his face, his throat all tight with things he wants to say and things he definitely cannot say. His hands shake but he hides it in the comforter, his eyes darting to her perky breasts, the peaked, pink buds, the way she looks at him so abashedly that he wants to lean over and mouth her name against her lips.

"Shut up," Maka pouts. "I would, too, you know!"

Soul squints in disbelief. "Doubtful."

"I would!"

"Ehhh…"

"I would! You're my best friend no matter what you look like and that's all that matters to me! _I trust you!_" Maka insists, leaning forward in that confrontational way she's known for—all passion, fire, green eyes bursting with so much _heat, _he thinks this is why he gravitates towards her so much.

And it immediately hardens his resolve. _I won't let some dirt-bag just use her and make her feel like her old man made her mother feel,_ he thinks suddenly, so surely it's incredible how Maka's courage and passion can inspire him so easily. That is, before reality sets in and his eyes age a few years and he pushes back bitter feelings of second place. He's had troubled thoughts and a self-esteem to match since he can remember, but the reasons behind them are always too good to ignore. _Not yet, she won't be out of my reach yet. I can still…protect her, for now._

Until she decides it's time to move on and find someone—_better_.

"Q-quit being a baby!" He forces out instead and swallows back a wound that has not happened. He throws the comforter to the side and kneels before her, sinking back on his thighs. "I told you I'd eat you out as a friend, so that's what I'm gonna' do. We cool?"

"I…yeah, we're cool," she smiles. She cannot look at his dark eyes without wanting to clench her thighs, no longer their burgundy shade under the lamplight. She cannot help the way her heart thuds at his low tone, her lower region aches and throbs with anticipation. She's never been touched by a man but she's sure Soul has touched many girls, he _must_ have, he looks so _calm_ sitting there staring—no, _watching _her, her body, the way her chest rises and falls, how her nipples harden under his gaze. She tries not to think about those nameless, faceless, girls because her jealousy cannot ruin the mood tonight, not tonight, because what she cares about the most is what this will mean to him now, in the present, not previously, in the past, not the other girls—but _her, only her for now_.

Soul has always given her his attention, even when he doesn't want to.

He has a special place in his heart for her, romantic or not.

But she wants something she cannot have (_but can now, in this way, for a little bit)_ and an overheard incident in a hallway coupled with Liz's explicit manner of speaking landed her with this golden opportunity that she will not waste. She may be all business and friendly laughter outside but what she has with Soul is different: it's real and raw and painful and she will take what she can get, even if her thoughts whisper that she's only digging herself into a deeper grave with every move.

Maka faces him again, taking a breath to control her nerves. She is about to spread her legs when he places a hand on her knee, hot as a brand, and when she looks back up at him, he's rolling his eyes at her.

"Quit thinking so much, or else you won't enjoy it and then you'll go tell everyone how bad I am with my mouth."

"You talk like you're actually good! You told me you've never done this before!" Maka grumps, sucking a breath when he parts her legs for her. Maka wants to clamp her thighs shut when she realizes he's staring, but he doesn't let her, and when he looks up with his signature wicked grin, she finds she doesn't want to anyway. His teeth seem sharper under the lamplight and Maka feels herself grow wetter when she spies his tongue running over the roof of his mouth thoughtfully.

"Haven't, but I gotta' feeling I'll get the job done," he drawls and then leans in, his breath hitting her inner thigh, brushing her swollen clit, making her shudder despite herself. He guides her flat on her back with his hand and gives her a thumbs up once she's nice and comfy, using some of his many pillows to prop herself up. She can only see his spikey mass of white hair between her thighs and her face becomes sixteen shades of red when she realizes just what, _exactly_, is happening.

"Just don't crush my head, yeah?"

"Um," Maka stutters, moving a leg awkwardly in. She only bumps Soul's head so she spreads her legs wider, then back closed, then groans when he snickers at her odd attempts at, well, she doesn't even_ know, _she just needs something to_ do_. "Shut up! Th-this is embarrassing!"

"Maka, you're _fine_, just relax and let me do this!"

"But…"

"Just tell me what you like as I do it," he says, so bluntly that she sighs loudly. "Yeah?" She stomps a foot by his arm and he laughs affectionately, deep chuckles reach nooks inside of her she didn't know existed. When she peeks between her fingers, he's resting his cheek against her knee with such a fond, _soft, _half-smile that it makes her face darken because when he smiles at her like that she gets all _nervous _and her heart gets all_ whacky,_ like it can't figure out a rhythm to set on, and then her chest, her chest becomes warm with affection and admiration and_—_

"I…I'll tell you as you do it."

He hums and runs his palm down her inner thigh comfortingly, as if marveling her skin. She doesn't know it, but he is—her skin is soft, softer than he believed it would be, and he takes his time running his palm down her long legs—parts of her body he thought he would never be able to touch, never like this, so intimately. His eyes fall to the one part of her he only ravaged in his darkest of dreams and feels his mouth water despite himself.

She feels his fingers suddenly touch her, slip between her folds and slide up to her throbbing, wet clit curiously and then has to gasp back a surprised gasp, her knees squeezing his shoulders in her shock. It feels unexpectedly good, surprisingly _hot_, but that doesn't stop her hands from trembling just a little.

"_Whaaaa_—your hands are _freezing_—!"

"My bad. My mouth might be _warmer_!"

Maka squeals, delight and surprise in one, and before she can reprimand him for that pervy answer, he's already proving his words true. "_A-ahhnn, Soul—THERE!" _

Maka shuts her eyes and arches her back and takes what she can get as he sucks back drool and kisses her again, open-mouth.

* * *

><p>He's good at this now.<p>

He learns much better when it's a hands-on activity, Maka found herself thinking once during class. Soul is annoyingly sharp, his observation skills better than one would peg them to be. With her prompting and guidance, he'd learned her cues, what she liked and what she didn't just by her physical reaction, what made her fist the sheets and what made her moan softly, guttural, loudly.

Soul has never been one to jot down notes during lectures, but when it comes to things he needed to _physically do_, Soul has always succeeded. She always comes slightly behind in those cases. But it is nothing a little reading up on the side could not fix.

"_Stop spelling out dumb things with your tongue!"_ Maka warns, blowing out a giggle when he lets the flat of his tongue run up from the bottom of her slit until he's sucking her clit in forgiveness. Sometimes she doesn't pay attention to what letters he licks against her folds, but other times she does, and usually they make her groan-giggle because they're nonsense. He peeks at her from between her thighs and Maka glares down at him from between her breasts. His other hand is groping her left breast; she closes one eye as he gives her tit a little squeeze, his thumb running over her nipple pleasantly. "I can _feel it_, Soul!"

"I'm not spelling out dumb things," he whines, grabbing her leg by the underside of her knee and letting go of her breast. He hoists her leg up on his shoulder and pushes her other one out for more room. She has a habit of attempting to squeeze his brain out from his skull when she comes. He can't say he hates it, but this afternoon he isn't in the mood to be gasping for breath. "Just wrote out cool and my name," he cackles when she tries to kick him. "Alright—_alright,_ I'll stop messing around—we got like, two hours," Soul tells her, glancing at the clock overhead. "Then Wes comes home."

"He really likes eating with you for some reason," Maka teases, sucking in a hiss when Soul leans forward and buries his nose into her swollen folds as he tongued her opening in that way she likes. He's back to kneading her tit, massaging her side with his palm—slightly under her arm, right where it makes her squirm and she finds herself panting for breath. "Y-you're such a slob," she cries out, eyes shut in delight, "when you eat!"

"Only coz you make such a mess," Soul quips back, giving her clit a noisy suck when she protested. It was enough to cut her shout into an impromptu moan, one that resonated straight down to his cock as her hips rocked under his mouth and she rubbed herself against his tongue. Soul squeezes her tit tighter now, moving his hand to pleasure its twin. He easily ignored his throbbing need; it was easy to ignore his erection now. The first few times he had eaten her out, his boner had been a painful reminder throughout. He had eventually resorted to massaging his cock as he ate her out, coming with her usually, but on the times he did not, he had no problem coming within the next few seconds. Maka's moans were erotic: they were breathy, excruciatingly cute squeaks, and so full of pleasure. It always brought goosebumps to his skin—surprising, because he has lost count how many times his mouth had acquainted itself with Maka's pussy, but he's sure it's been more than twenty at this point and he's only ten percent embarrassed he's kept count.

Today she comes quickly, unable to stop herself from tipping over the edge when he slips his fingers into her. That's always her undoing: feeling two digits slide into her, rubbing her walls, curling—it needs to start off soft, then get more rigorous. It's always when he's thrusting his fingers quick and hard into her that she unravels into a hot, writhing mess that has Soul grinning from his position between her thighs.

"Ah," Maka recalls, surfacing from her orgasm. _That's right…_ Maka remembers, her eyes fluttering open, her body lax and comfortable under his plethora of pillows. _I wanted to ask…He asked me before, if it would be okay if we went all the way. But—_ It's wrong, of course. He's her friend, her _best_ friend. To go the entire nine yards with her best friend would make them 'friends with benefits' although, Maka reminds herself guiltily, they basically were already. It's what they agreed on, but it'd be more real if they actually went all the way. _But he doesn't let me help him out, _Maka frowns. She had realized two sessions into their oral frenzy that Soul also had a problem downstairs, a very _prominent_ problem that he usually waved off despite her insistence.

At first she believed it was because Soul wanted to keep their relationship as it was: he loosens her up from a long day of difficult classes with the handy aid of his tongue, but he keeps himself removed from the situation. Maka always believed it was because he wanted to keep them at a distance, but she soon came to realize it was only because—

"Soul…"

"Hn?" Soul wipes around his mouth and chin with a baby wipe from the box he kept in his bedside drawer. He also had an assortment of other sexual related things he is sure he will never use, but he had been nervous those many weeks ago. He had overbought, but he knows he can give some things away if he was sure he'd never use them. "I hope Wes brings meatloaf for lunch," he stretches. "I haven't eaten beef in a while. He keeps bringing home chicken for some reason." Maka follows the way his undershirt clings to his toned figure. She looks away before he notices, turning her head away as doubt begins to fill her.

She had been against engaging in such things with her best friend because, _honestly_, her thoughts kept straying back to her father and his flighty ways. Liz had been the one who had ruffled her hair and softly told her that where her father had many, _many _sexual partners, Maka would just have one. She would have _Soul_, the man she trusted above all others, and her first sexual experience would be gentle and nice and actually _meaningful _because she cared about Soul a lot. She can't deny the afternoons spent with Soul in bed were the best ones she's had yet—their conversation, the way he always caressed her thighs while she curled just inches underneath his arm, their comfortable silence.

It's never getting any better than this, right? As friends with benefits?

It was all so _nice and perfect and neat _that Maka could _almost _believe that they were in lo_—_

"A-as a testament of our friendship," Maka coughs, not looking at him. She trusts him with this. She wants it to be him—_him_, because he's her best kept secret and the only place that has felt like home for a long time. "I think we should have sex."

"…_What?"_

Maka flushes, losing her courage at his gaping face. "Y-you said you wouldn't mind!"

"Wha—no, I, uh, I don't, but, _you were the one who said we'd keep it strictly oral!" _

"That was_ before _I realized it—!" She stops herself, her face coloring.

"It what?" He prompts, eying her.

"It….it would be so n…_nice_," she mumbles, ignoring his pleasantly surprised expression. She shakes off her nerves and soldiers through: "If you don't want to because you don't feel comfortable, that's fine! But I feel comfortable enough with you to go that far so I just wanted you to know!" She rushes the last bit, feeling his stare bore through her.

"Yes."

Maka looks up, cocks her head at his sudden coughing.

"I mean, _yeah_."

"Really?" Maka perks up.

"Yeah. I'm cool with it if you are."

It's hard to fight down her excitement. "Okay! I don't think I have any homework—no, I do, I have a test on Friday. It's worth twenty five percent of my grade, so I have to study hard these next few days," Maka frowns, pondering it a little more. She's felt much better after she and Soul began to fool around, she isn't going to lie. The pressure that sometimes tempted her to tear her notes in half and give up was suddenly halved and Maka can't decide if it's because of the sex or because she tells Soul of her long-suffering after—when she's dozing beside him, curled up under his sheets, his comforting breathing lulling her into such a state of _relaxation_ that she felt okay telling him of her struggles—okay telling him sometimes she couldn't focus, felt too stressed, wanted to stop and just sleep for days on end, was that normal? Was she depressed, did her mother feel this way too—_was she failing her mother by feeling like this, like she can't do it?_

His fingers in her hair made her feel safe and his soft hums, his soft words, didn't make her feel like she's let someone down.

"If you want we can do it right now," he states, interrupting her reverie. They have little less than two hours until Wes comes home. He's sure that is more than enough time just because he isn't sure about his stamina. He sighs heavily at the thought of lasting less than a minute, but he had edged enough over the past few years to know that at least he could keep his cum to himself for a good few hours. Of course, being _inside _Maka changed things a lot. He had faith he could hold it together, though. He gives himself an optimistic minute and ten seconds. "Since you're _wet_ enough right now, it should be easy," he leers and she scowls, crossing her arms over her chest.

"It's _natural._"

"I dunno', Maka, sometimes it just _drips _off my chin—!"

"Whaaa—shut up, shut up! That's so gross—ugh, do you want to or not, Soul?!"

"Coming," he says instantly, then sniggers and has to catch the pillow she throws at him. He crawls up next to her and reaches into his drawer, rummaging through it. "Uh, a while back I went to the store and bought a lot of stuff I thought I'd need. So," he took out a condom and also a packaged bottle of lube.

"Is that…?"

"Yeah. Black Star once mentioned that it's really useful so I decided to go with it," Soul tells her with a shrug. "I just got this one because it was expensive."

"Soul, just because it's expensive doesn't mean it's good! Give me that!" Maka bristles, sticking her hand out at him expectantly. "Besides, what does Black Star know about sex?" Maka clears her throat, grimacing. Black Star's sex life is _not _something she wants to know about _ever_, if she can help it.

"Lot more than me, that's for sure," he grumps but hands the bottle over to her, sitting on the corner of the bed with the single square condom wrapper in his hand. It's as she's reading the directions on the back of the bottle that Soul grows nervous, gulping down at the innocent wrapper in his hand. He knows how to put it on—high school, he thinks, _remember high school and the banana_—but it's the overall _act _that he's hesitant about. He struggles with admitting to her that he's never had sex before and winging it when he hears a splurge, and then he snaps his head to Maka to find her pouring a string of lube onto her hand with curiosity.

She looks at him wide eyed, her lips pouty and pink. Caught. "What?"

"Wh-what the hell are you gonna' do with that?"

"Apply it…down here," Maka says slowly, as if speaking to a child. She doesn't point between her legs but he still looks. "I'm just curious about how easy it'd make it—ah, I know you would be the one using it I just—" she fumbles, stilling when he still hasn't looked away. Her face colors a little more, knocking her knees together.

"Hey…can I watch?" At Maka's raised eyebrows, he adds hastily: "I mean, I can't exactly _do it _if I'm not hard." He points at his boxer shorts, untented and pretty low on his waist. At Maka's hesitant look and the way she huddles in on herself a little, Soul relents. He's lucky, more than lucky really, that she had so much trust in _him _to do such a thing. "Uh, nevermind. Forget I asked," he looks away. "I can go to the bathroom for that."

"No! Wait, I…"

"It's cool, Maka, you don't have to—!"

"No, I mean, you can—!"

Soul is standing up and Maka's red cheeks are from irritation now:

"Just _watch_ already!"

Soul immediately looks and his breath catches. She has her legs spread, slightly turned to him. Her breasts are perky—they're always so _perky, _so nice and soft and round. Her tits and ass and legs and shoulders and toes and _her entire self_ is his favorite. He can't see her very well, but it's enough of a tease for him to feel blood rush down to his loins. She doesn't look at him as she reaches down and—Soul swallows hard, heart thudding, hands trembling lightly before they fist by his side. Every time Maka's shoulders move lower, he can see the way her hand rubs over her clit, her lips, in wonder at the slickness. Then the way she reaches a little lower to _sink the tips of her fingers into her pussy , so easily, he can see her easily sink in two fingers into herself and the look of interest, the way her eyelids hood with every push of her fingers—_Soul has to look away, glancing down to find himself not even half-mast. He's fully erect, cock pushing against his boxers impatiently, throbbing achingly. He places a hand over his crotch and sucks back a groan when his dick twitches at the thought of sinking into Maka's hot, wet—

_Alright, cool it. Cool it. Fuck, can't lose it now. _He coaches himself. Minute and ten seconds _cannot_ become ten seconds so soon. He's torn the condom when he realizes he has an audience. "…Maka?"

She jumps at being addressed, but has that stubborn look on her face. "W-well, you watched me! I'm just curious…"

"So uncool… alright, whatever," he grumbles, managing to hide his reddening cheeks by focusing on the task at hand. He isn't shy about his dick. To be fair, they had been friends for a long time, and there were many times during the summer where he had stripped down to his boxers in her presence. The days of turning away from her wide, curious eyes was a thing of the past.

Soul rubs the base of his palm down his aching member before he slips a thumb down the waistband of his boxers, pulling them down until they slipped down his knees and hit the floor.

"W…whoa…"

Soul draws himself away from his thoughts to glance at Maka, who is gaping at his—

"What's with that face?"

"It's…a lot different than I thought it'd be… Sorry! I've never…"

Soul feels his blood drain from his face at her guilty smile. "_Please_ don't tell me you've never seen one before."

"I mean, sometimes the pop up ads on my papa's computer _show _it but I always click out before I can really _see _it."

There's a pause, then:

"And plus all of those penises are _super huge and ridiculous, _I'm really glad they aren't actually like that," Maka admits with a sheepish giggle that has Soul looking up at the ceiling in supplication.

"_You're such an idiot_."

"Shut up! We can't _all_ be as experienced as you!" She bristles and he gives her a strange look, one she ignores in favor of glowering at the wall.

"It's not hard to log into a porn site," he snorts softly and crooks a smile at her bristling-kitten growl at him. "Well. Here it is," Soul deadpans but his attempt at being cool falls short with his face burning red. Even his ears feel hot. "This is how it looks like….it's not that pretty."

"Actually, it's kinda…"

He holds his breath.

"…_cute_…."

Soul groans loudly and buries his face in his palm. "Only you can make me soft with one word!"

"NO! Don't you dare, we're running out of time!"

"So what! It's not like—ughhh, _Mak_a…too late."

"It's not like what? Doesn't sex take a while?"

"Uh," Soul sputters, caught. "No? I don't know!"

"What do you mean, _you don't know?" _Maka growls.

"I don't know!" Soul repeats, exasperatedly. "Besides, I doubt it takes long when you're _ready to come_—or I was, until you called my dick _cute!" _

"It _is_—look, nevermind that! What do you mean, you won't last?"

"I didn't _say_ that," Soul grits out, glaring daggers at her. This is ridiculous; there was no use trying to skirt around it. Maka would figure it out soon enough, anyway. She always did. "I _mean_, I've never had sex before, so it's sorta of a pass/fail kinda' thing until I get the hang of it! I don't know how long it's gonna' last, alright? Let's just—_see_ where it goes and work from there," he sighs in defeat, staring at the wall broodily while Maka gapes at him, wide-eyed.

The look on her face is strange: it's a mixture of shock, relief, dread. She doesn't give him a chance to ask before she is pressing her knees to her chest and looking at him in that adorably stubborn way of hers.

"If this is your first time, too…then maybe we shouldn't."

Soul stills, panic making his blood rush.

Maka tucks her hair behind her ear. "Sorry. I didn't know. You should save it for someone that really matters—!

"_You_ matter," Soul cuts her off, then looks away from her surprise. Reel it in, he tells himself, he doesn't want to muck this up with his feelings like that, make her uncomfortable or anything. "I told you, its fine. I don't mind losing it to you just like you don't mind losing it to me."

Maka nods, then her eyes steel again and he can't help the way his lips quirk up in a smile at her determination. "I-I thought you already had, but if that's true, then it's still okay! We can learn," she smiles a little, wiggling her toes against his sheets. "Together."

Its things like that which make him want to crush her into a hug or something equally cheesy. "…Don't tell me you believed those dumb rumors—I was, like, sixteen," he rolls his eyes.

Maka flusters and he instantly knows that she did. He resists a sigh.

"Well, what was I _supposed_ to think?"

"They weren't true?"

"You never denied them!" Maka argues.

"I never denied being raised in the Beverly Hills as a super model _or _being a member of Daft Punk. Doesn't mean it's not a buncha' bullshit," Soul snorts. He softens his gaze when Maka loses her fire and agrees quietly, pouting at her knees in conflict. "I'm telling the truth…." She can read the sincerity in his eyes. "'Sides, how could I ever get laid with you breathing down my neck about all those remedial classes?" He grins and it manages a giggle out of her, loosening her shoulders and lighting her pretty green eyes to their usual sprightly shade. "So?"

"Are you…?" Her eyes flicker below his waist.

He grins wolfishly. "Give me another show and I will be."

He fully deserved that Maka Chop, but the way she had bitten back a grin as she had done it made it all worth it.

* * *

><p>"Are you <em>sure <em>no one is home?"

"No one's home, Maka," Soul repeats for the nth time. "_C'mon_—you've had your nose in those books for the past two weeks. Midterms are over and I even made sure everyone was gone for this," he complains as they walk downstairs, Maka looking down at her shoes contemplatively. He tries to peer at her expression but she shoves her hand in his face.

"Erugh—Maka!"

"Midterms were a nightmare, you can't expect me to be fully recovered from that yet!" Maka tells him matter-of-fact, running ahead of him. She waits for him downstairs with her hands clasped behind her back, her pigtails hanging low on her head. He wants to unravel them and run his fingers through her hair, grab a thick bunch of it, pull her close and—he feels warmth pool in his stomach and soon he can feel his erection press against his jeans.

"Music theory was hell," is all he says to her, grabbing her by the waist. She squeaks, squeezing his elbow as he leads her towards the white leather couches of the living room. "I survived and you look like you're in one piece." It was a spacious room and he's glad everyone is out—the vaulted ceiling meant sound echoed and Maka, he has learned, isn't particularly quiet when they're in the throes of sex.

"This is the look of a dead person, Soul," Maka chides, giving him a squinty look.

He snorts. "For a dead person, you're pretty _lively_," he mocks.

"Shut _up_—that was so bad!"

Soul sniggers, scooting back on the couch while he braces Maka against him lest she fall back. His parents have been gone since Wednesday and his brother does not return from work until late that evening. The maids are on their break day and the single butler in their household is off-duty until his parents return from their concerto in Rome.

"Ow—_ouch_, wait!"

"S'wrong?" he tenses.

"My leg is cramping up," Maka gripes and he rolls his eyes affectionately, letting her crawl up to her knees until she is straddling him comfortably. She's stretching out her leg when he buries his face between her breasts, his hands coming up to squeezed them tightly while she relaxed in his hold. His hot mouth opens against the swell of her breast, mouthing her hardening nipple eagerly. Her soft moan convinces him to bite down gently on her hard nub, leave a wet spot on her shirt. "Soul, wait up," Maka says distractedly, reaching in her shorts back pocket for her phone. "Tsubaki is calling me. I think it's for the party later."

"Party?" Soul groans. It's enough of a downer for him to let go of her breasts. "It's just Black Star's birthday. It's not like he doesn't have it every year," he closes an eye when Maka bops his head lightly, talking to Tsubaki on the phone while he broodily caresses her thigh. "He's gonna' invite the entire university," he complains, ignoring Maka's cheerful promise that they would be at Liz and Patty's home at six sharp. "He's gonna' spike the drinks again and there's gonna' be a police raid like _last year._"

Maka rolls her eyes at his paper-thin complaints. "We're _going_, Soul, you know how excited Black Star is over it. We're his friends, we have to go!"

"We're friends, too, doesn't mean you didn't chicken out and not come to my party that one time!"

"We were fifteen and you never said anything about—about _this!_ I was really underdressed," Maka protests, gesturing to the elegantly decorated living room. It's always different every few months or so. Soul's mother brings in a professional home décor agent to make her living room over every time she grows bored with it. But that evening had been an embarrassing one for her. She'd just ended up giving the gift to the butler before hightailing it home to change. "Besides, I _did_ come…just not when I said I would."

"At least that was the last birthday my parents arranged."

"We picked it up again when you were eighteen," Maka laughs and then squeaks when he hooks his fingers into the waistband of her shorts. He tugs them and she smiles, gripping his shoulder as he wiggles her shorts down the curve of her ass. She helps him when he gets stuck at her thighs and tosses them aside for him.

She's not sure when they became so comfortable removing their clothes for one another. She thinks it has to do with the fact that Soul touches her with such reverence, dispels any doubts she has about her body. He has taking a liking to running his tongue over whatever he can get away with—sometimes on her tickle spots, which quickly cools her blood. He learned this the hard way—_or not_, Maka thinks, he hadn't looked put-off when she said she wasn't in the mood anymore. He just rolled her over so he could take her spot and turned on the TV in his bedroom, commenting about basketball games and some TV series as he let his own blood cool. But she was naked that time, had only the decency to curl up a little so she wasn't so exposed, and yet they were so much better with each other like this—naked, together, talking as if they were in any other place.

Just like they have gotten _much _better at having sex.

She can't say if he was horrible or not the first time since she had no one else to compare him to, but she likes to think they did _alright _for their first time. It didn't hurt as bad as everyone said it would the first time they had sex. It was a burning stretching sensation that peaked in pain, then declined once he was fully sheathed and she adjusted to his girth. He had been suspicious at first, continuously asking her if she was okay, but cleared it off when she waved at him to go, at the time ducking her face out of embarrassment.

It _hurt_ the second time and she realized, as Soul sat on the edge of the bed broody and unwilling to continue if it hurt her so bad, that lube truly _helped in so many ways. _After that, lube became a constant between them until she was used to his girth. Even then, Maka thinks, it was still a pretty useful product as they got the hang of things…through many, many sessions.

But she didn't come like Liz raved about so wildly or Tsubaki giggled about so secretly during their hangouts. She just felt _good_, knowing he was inside her, panting so hard against her ear, groaning her name, groping her thighs with his pleasure. That was enough for her, that thrum of pleasure from having his body so close to hers. She hasn't orgasmed from sex yet, but Soul takes care of her before the act—always, he always takes care of her and, when he doesn't, she reminds him with a tug on his ear and he's very obedient to heed her demands.

Another surprise was the tiredness and soreness and basically the way Soul sometimes needed to _slow down_ to catch his breath before continuing. Sex is an _exhausting_ ordeal, a lot more exhausting than she believed it would be, and getting the hang of moving her hips with him had been a nightmare that had Soul snorting out laughter when she growled in frustration. That, she remembers, ended with a smack and mini-argument that had him soft in no time and ended up with them just deciding they'd watch television before trying again when he wasn't so predisposed to sniggering at her pouting.

Then once she _did_ manage to keep up with his rhythm, it was up to Soul not to break it, which she always rolled her eyes at because he _always_ broke it. Not to mention the slower the rhythm, the more her gluts and thighs and just about every muscle in her body ached the next morning. Exercise she hasn't done since high school, she thinks, _very_ good exercise because they don't get so tired anymore—Soul doesn't get as winded, her muscles aren't as sore anymore. Maka thinks they are on a pretty good path.

A path she sometimes fretted over because Soul had slowly begun to test their boundaries recently.

It wasn't just the simple act of sex, which she was satisfied with, but he had begun to factor in _other moves _that left her supremely spoiled. He has never kissed her on the mouth or anywhere near her face but he licked, nibbled, _kissed_ her neck and anything below her breasts was beyond fine. Maka did not have any issues with it until she, too, began to test his limits. To her surprise and unease, Soul did not seem to have _any_ limits. Maka can think of many instances where she had bitten his ear or shoulder—she had even licked up to his cheek at one point and he had only groaned and pumped faster into her, hitting a spot within her that made her jerk in sudden pleasure, _want_.

But his lack of boundaries makes her uneasy, mostly because she doesn't know what will happen if she goes further. She _wants_ to go further but it's tricky, to kiss her best friend on the mouth as if it means nothing.

She doesn't want it to mean nothing.

She wants a kiss to hold _weight_, although sex should be something enjoyed between loving partners, right? She's always screamed herself hoarse at her father for his flings and sometimes she is tempted to call Soul and tell him that this _thing _between them should stop before they took it any further. But she always manages to talk herself out of it, tell herself that she would never think of proposing such a thing to another man unless she was in a committed relationship with them—which isn't likely, she thinks bitterly, not likely when Soul can blow on her wrist and she throbs with want, when he grins at her and her heart cracks with love.

"Don't take off your clothes," Maka tells him, glancing behind her at the hallway that leads to the lobby. "Tsubaki said Patty will be here soon to settle some things for Black Star's party so if we don't finish by then, you can go get the door while I excuse myself to the bathroom."

"Sounds good," he shrugs and nuzzles the underside of her breast, palming her other tit while she takes a slow breath and tells herself to stop trembling under his touch. He's always so sturdy, Maka thinks, squeezing his shoulders. He's always so firm and patient with her. He's focused and Maka wishes she were more focused, too, because then she would not let herself need him like this; so wantonly, with no regard to her deepening affections for him.

She's always been very reckless in the moment.

She tells herself this entire situation with him is a _moment_ and sits on his lap, shifting so the bulge in his pants rubs against her.

Soul spreads his legs, makes himself comfortable against the leather couch, while she digs her knees into his sides and rolls her hips against his. He mouths something against her neck and she giggles despite herself, laughing softly when he sucks on her ticklish spot under her ear playfully.

"St-stop! Soul!" She warns, muffling a choke of laugh. "Soul!" She can feel his grin against her skin before her lips part in a quiet moan, his hands gripping her ass and spreading her cheeks thoughtfully with each thrust. His hands are strong, moving to grip her tiny waist as she uses his shoulder for leverage, and the friction in his jeans is enough to have him breathing harsh, quick gasps—urging her to move harder, _faster_.

"Maka," he groans, bucking his hips up. "C'mon, I'm gonna' cream my pants if you keep this up."

"You've taken worse," Maka scoffs softly, circling her hips against his. It's his crux, his fall, and he lets his head fall back in a loud moan while his hands cup her ass. _She's perfect_, he likes to think when they're together like this. He likes to think of all the ways he can say she's perfect without giving himself away. So he grinds her wet pussy against his dick, soft mews punctuating each rock. Maka moans softly when he reaches under her shirt and bra to cup her breast and she lets out a little noise, not a moan or a gasp but something in between. He kisses her neck and then licks down to her collarbone. Maka draws closer and her thrusts become faster, harder when he pulls the neck of her tank top down enough to suck on her nipple and her thrusts become even faster when he gropes her ass hard, his teeth biting the side of her tit enough to make her pleasured _ugh _resound in the living room.

"_Soul_," Maka groans, pulling at the back of his hair. He's forced to look up at her, at her hooded emerald eyes, how much darker they are when she's so needy like this, and he grabs her hips and bucks up into her a few times. She hisses, face scrunching with bliss, eyes closing as she mouths his name again, before she rests the side of her cheek against his temple and her soft little mews fill his ears, sweet and aching. She weakly pushes at his shoulder. "Let's lie down so we can finish already, I can't wait anymore!"

"I was thinking," Soul breathes hard against her neck, one arm wrapped around her waist. "We should try something different."

"Different?"

"Let's do it like this."

Maka is not going to lie: although they have stuck with missionary since they first started, it doesn't mean she's never in control. Soul, she has come to realize, comes harder when she takes control, moans louder when she digs her heels into his lower back, when she bites his shoulder and thrusts her hips up into him to assume control because he loses rhythm the closer he comes. He's not submissive, but he touches the border often.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Just let me—!" He lifts her hips off the couch and hastily gets rid of her silk panties. She does not have time to even kick them off her ankle properly before he's unbuttoning his jeans and lowering them enough where his cock could stand at full mast without any obstruction. She feels her cheeks pink as she looks at it and when she looks up, Soul is giving her a mildly disgruntled look to hide his own colored cheeks. "Would you quit staring at it every time?"

"Y-you always stare at _me _when you're down there!"

"But I kinda' _have to_ since I'm _eating you out!_"

"Just put on a condom!" Maka bristles. She scoots back a little on his lap while he shuffles out a condom from his jeans pocket, tearing the packet. Then he freezes.

"Uh, wait."

"What?"

"I forgot the lube upstairs. Let me go—!"

"No, it's fine, let's just do it like this," Maka quickly waves off, smiling when he looks at her hesitantly. "I think—I think I can do it without it!"

He gives her a calculating look before nodding, returning to his task of sheathing his cock within the condom. "Fine, but if it hurts, just tell me so I can go get it."

"Mhm," Maka nods and when he's finished, she stands on her knees and shimmies closer to him, hesitant to wrap an arm around his neck but doing it before she could chicken out. He doesn't mind and only sighs in contentment when she grabs his dick to position him at her entrance. Immediately, it's the best idea Soul has had since offering to ease her unbearable frustration through sex in the spirit of camaraderie.

Maka gasps loudly and actually chokes, digging her fingers into the back of his neck as she sinks down on his shaft. He's bigger—he's thicker—no, he's _hitting something inside her _and she doesn't know _what_ it isbut she feels more pleasure than she has _ever_ felt and she voices it through her teeth, eyes shut tightly. "_A-ah! This feels so good—dammit, Soul, move, move, it feels—h-hah, haa, yes, please," _ and her moans reach a new fevered pitch that Soul reacts to, suddenly, unexpectedly, with his mouth worshipping her breasts and shoulders in a way that makes her cry out louder.

It's easier for her to keep up the pace—she's in control, completely, wonderfully, and Maka spreads her legs and goes faster, all the while Soul groans into her neck as he palms her ass.

"_Fuck—_shit, Maka, if you liked this so much, why didn't you ask before," he forces out, teeth clenched against the utterly _blissful _movements of her god-given hips. He caresses them in thanks, thrusting up into her without warning and earning himself the dirtiest moan she has voiced to date. Her chest heaves and he licks her tit, lowering her until she has him completely sheathed within her.

"I didn't know—we always did it one way," Maka trembles, grabbing his waist and tugging. He understands and slides further down the couch, until his neck is bent at an awkward angle but it's perfect for her. He doesn't even care; it feels too good to stop. His lidded eyes watch as she braces herself against the back of the couch, her flushed breasts bouncing with every thrust. He can't help himself and he grabs one, rubbing his thumb over a peak while she moans his name and he twitches inside of her.

"Maka, go—arghhh, that—!" She moves faster and he groans, sharp teeth grinding against each other. He needs—words, yeah, he needs a word that can convey what he needs _right now, immediately,_ and it's out before he can even edit: "Fuck me harder! _Maka!"_ He harshly shouts and she _moans, _a deep-souled, lustful moan as her hips moving furiously against his. She never did like to disappoint so she fucks him hard and she fucks him good, with one leg propped up on the couch slightly for leverage as she slams her sopping pussy harder on his cock.

"Fine?_" _she gasps, questioningly, green eyes locked on his.

"_Shit_," he chokes and narrowly holds onto his cum when she goes faster, fucking herself deeper, her pussy clenching around his as her hooded eyes stare down at him—he feels it, the way she clenches around him in that hot, hot way of hers. And when he forces himself to open his eyes, they zero into the way her tits bounce and her hair falls out of their neat pigtails, her green eyes never leaving his face as she pants. His ears scarcely catch the way their skin slaps against each other, the way the couch is moving, sliding back until it hits the wall again and again and again.

"Maka," Soul's voice cracks with a groan. She's so wet and she her pussy clings onto him so tightly, _unbearably good_. He can't catch his breath; this is the best thing in the world and if he dies from lack of oxygen, he believes there can't be a better death than this. "_Harder!_"

"I-I don't think I can," she gasps out. Now she understands why Soul tended to lose rhythm right before he came: it was hard to concentrate when she was bordering on the edge of something wonderful, when she gazed down at his face and he looked _like that_, sexy with every groan and grit of his teeth, every expletive his mouthed as she grinded her hips harder on his.

She should have known that he'd like it better if she took control for a bit—he always did like that, when she took over, he always told her but she always pegged it as him being lazy. She realizes now he just _likes _it, likes being in her care, under her watchful eye—security, she briefly ponders, she knows he's never had the best self-esteem but she'll make that better, yeah, she'll—help him with that more—but first—

"I can't go faster—dammit, Soul!"

"You can," he urges.

"Ngh…"

"I _know_ you can," he pleads and when he leans up, his lips brushing the corner of her mouth, and he hisses, "_You're Maka fucking Albarn, you're the best there is," _she does not disappointment: leaning back to give him some hard pumps that has her crying out with each one, her hands gripping his kneecaps for leverage. He runs a hand up her taut stomach as her back arches. Maka lets her head fall back and she tongues the side of her lip. He would give anything to kiss those lips—he'd _do_ anything to be able to press his tongue against hers, to kiss her lips fully and hard, to bite them in such a way that she'd want more.

Maka roughly thrusts into him fully and he can't hold back when her pussy slides so _fucking good _around him: he comes with a loud swear and her name, with his fingers dug into her hips hard enough to bruise. She comes a few thrusts after, the loudest yet, the best (first, he thinks hazily, her first sex-given) orgasm yet, and the way she loses strength and sinks back on her thighs is beautiful. She's sweating, breathing just as hard as him, and his body shows her what words cannot when he rights himself and kisses her under her chin gently, caressing her back, her waist, while she wraps her arms under his to grip his shoulders. She comes down from her high with soft purrs and sweet pants of his name.

"Can you do the work from now on?" Soul says after a minute of silence, sated but completely exhausted. "You always do everything better than me," but there is no bitterness or remorse, only amusement and pride, and Maka cannot contain her laughter: she giggles into his shoulder, absolutely satisfied, and by the time they are both facing each other and Maka is glaring at him when he whines that he refuses to return to missionary after _that, _the doorbell rings.

"That's her, right?" Soul yawns, stretching as Maka grapples for her shorts. Soul reaches over to the side to grab her panties, balling them up and shoving them in his jeans pocket. At her wide-eyed look, Soul sends her a wicked grin, nudging her off him. "Gonna' take these for now. Collateral," he offers as a reason and hurries to the door before she could grab onto his shirt.

He ignores her hiss of his name to head into the lobby, using the mirror on the wall to make sure he looked normal, jeans zipped nice and tidy, and _not_ like he had just been fucked into oblivion by his best friend. When he deems himself presentable, Soul opens the door to welcome Patty inside, who is furiously typing something on her phone.

"Ughhh! Black Star is insane, Souuulll! He wants me to order a _water slide_, are you kidding me? Do you know how expensive those are, he's crazy! And it's _November!_ It's too cold for that! I'm just getting him a trampoline—he likes trampolines, right, because it's too late, I already ordered it and it is coming in in like two hours—WHERE IS MAKA?" She screeches, tapping her foot.

Soul only blinks lazily. Patty had the worst temper when she was stressed. "Bathroom."

"What's she doing, taking a shit or something? I _need _her here to help me out! She's known Black Star the longest!"

Soul sniggers at her comment but answers, "She'll be out soon. The nearest bathroom is just down the hall."

"Whaaaaa! Maka told me she'd help me out with decorations and she never replied to that message I sent her like an hour agoooo!" Patty whines. Soul has the decency to look away when she said that, a smirk curling his lips. Maka would _not_ have replied to anything, given that she had been teasing him to hell at the time. "She was so excited for the party, too, Black Star's like her brother! Or lover," she pouts with a roll of the eye.

The comment doesn't sit well with Soul—in fact, it quite frankly makes him _sick_ to his stomach. If there is one way to pull him down from his high, it is to mention how much Maka Albarn did _not_ belong to him. There's a difference between having the body and having soul and he knows this too well. The body isn't forever and the soul does not age, it's resilient like her mind, her heart, it is something deeply connected to her _self_. It's something he wants so desperately to give to her and something he wants so desperately to _cradle_ against his own burning heart because he really doesn't want to be a notch in her bedpost, a footnote in her happiness.

"Hey, Patty!" Maka comes from down the hall, giving her friend a bright smile. Her hair is back in its impeccable twin pigtails but she is brilliant, jubilant as she always is. Maybe more so; she's been happier lately. "Sorry for the wait! I was in the bathroom!"

"Finally!" Patty exclaims, bringing her into a tight hug before holding her by the shoulders, bright blue eyes serious as she shouts: "I ordered a trampoline for the party."

"Great! Black Star will love it—he used to go to the gym a lot in high school and they had a trampoline there, and a rock climbing wall. He's into anything that has to do with athletics, I think you'll have a hard time removing him from that trampoline," Maka beams, hands crossed behind her back as Patty beams excitedly, jumping up and down.

"Wheeeee, yay! If Black Star didn't have anyone else who knew him as well as you did, I'd be in big trouble! Liz told me not to screw up, so I'm trying not to!" She winks, grinning as wide as she could.

Maka waves it off with pink cheeks, grinning. "No problem! He's like my brother."

"Brother?" Patty waggles her brows. "He's waaaaay too ripped to be brother-material. How about a friend with benefits since he talks about needing one of _those_ all the time!" She giggles and Soul wants to tell her to _shut up_ but all he does is offer a grimacing smile. Maka clears her throat awkwardly, throwing furtive glances at Soul as he shoves his hands deeply into his jeans pockets. He grips her panties in his fist. "_Everyone_ knows how much Tsubaki wants to bang him! Everyone except him," Patty shakes her head, dismayed.

"Tsubaki _really_ cares about him, though," Maka quickly says, swallowing the nervous lump in her throat. "I would never—no, he really is like my brother."

Patty giggles again and elbows Soul, overlooking his stiff upper lip. "Hear that Soul? Sounds like Maka would be into it if it were anyone else, ehhh?" She winks at him. Maka is a mess inside: Patty doesn't know she took her sisters advice seriously. She doesn't know that she is actually messing around with Soul, _getting too deep with him, _and Maka wants to keep him her secret for a while longer_. _"What do you say? Would you?" She winks playfully at Maka, who stares at Soul with wide-eyed panic. Before she can distract Patty with something, Soul speaks:

"We are," he stares at Patty blankly, ignoring Maka's gaping, horrified, look. He's fed up with her jokes—her lewd suggestions, feeding the doubts he has carried since day one of he and Maka's boundary-crossing decision. He doesn't want to listen to it; he wants to keep Maka for himself for as long as he can, as long as he possibly _might_, before she breaks it off with him when some other man catches her attention; snags her from his arms and takes her with more passion than she will ever, ever give him.

One look at Maka's face, however, has him cracking a smirk and adding, "Kidding."

And Patty just guffaws, slapping his arm as she says he's getting _really_ a-little-too-good at telling jokes with a straight face.

"That's Black Star's fault, since Soul and him used to play pranks on everyone when we were younger," Maka laughs along with her but her eyes are a shade darker, her smile not so much happy as it is fallen, and when Patty finally stops laughing, Maka ushers her out without preamble and does not look back at Soul—she only beckons him to follow with her hand, and he does.

He will follow her anywhere if she asked him to.

That's the problem.


	2. Chapter 2

**i only want what i can't have  
>by. <strong>_Poisoned Scarlett_

He only wants sympathy in the form of her crawling into bed with him.

Wes would definitely sit him down for one of his talks if he knew; he would _definitely_ tell him that he needs to stop these meetings. It's self-destructive, it's not right; they'll both come out very hurt from this. He'd tell him that what he needs the most is to distance himself from Maka in order to numb his feelings for her enough to move on. He'd tell him to do it slowly, to keep it lukewarm—let it cool off, let it become cold, let it become _ice _but Soul cannot do that to Maka.

Maka is too important to him and he isn't unusually cruel. Maka has been let down, ignored, and left behind too many times for him to willingly _leave_ her. He doesn't want to end up as another crossed out name in her heart. He just wants her to be _happy _because she was the one who helped _him_ be happy, who forced him to look at his ugly jealousy and inferiority complex—to take a good, long look—and realize how he is _so much better than that, so wonderful in his own way. _She made him realize his fears were just smoke hiding behind a brass-knobbed door. A door he could have opened at any time, a door he hadn't the courage to open until she stood beside him and helped him through it. _She_ was the one who did that. _She_ was the one who took the time to help him when no one else would. _She was everything to him_ and he just wants to return the favour _but_—

Maybe he _is_ unusually cruel and that's why he's sleeping with her.

_What am I doing? This…isn't how it's supposed to be._

Soul shifts until he's lying sideways on the couch and glances down at her. She's cross-legged in front of her television, in a t-shirt and some faded crosshatch pajama pants. Her apartment isn't that big. It's furnished decently and it reminds him of her so much, in everything; in the old cherry wood that gives her home an antique feel, in the cream colored carpet, in the threadbare couch, even in the flowery and dusty aroma, the comforting stack of well-worn books pushed against every empty space of wall. He'd say it's a decent place for one person, perhaps a little too big for her.

He wonders how lonely a person can be in an empty house.

He's lonely in a full house, but he forces those thoughts away to concentrate on the television.

"Soul?"

"Hn?"

"Is everything alright?"

He flicks his eyes down to her and finds her turned towards him, big doe eyes fixed on him with concern. He looks back to the TV before he answers, "Yeah, why?"

"You were acting a little weird at Black Star's party yesterday," Maka says tentatively, putting down her National Geographic magazine. "You hardly hung out with him, even when he asked you to. I was just wondering if you and Black Star had another fight or something." It was rare the times Soul and Black Star fought, but they were not unheard of. If they were annoyed at each other, it just took getting them together for a little while to fix it.

"No. S'cool, just had a stomach ache from eating too much cake," Soul lies and clenches his jaw when Maka doesn't look away from him. Before he can cave under her perceptive gaze, she looks back at the TV. Soul would tell anyone else that Maka would drop it there except he knows her too well to hope for such an outcome. That's why he's not surprised when Black Star ends up barging into his room the next morning with loud declarations of basketball and then some pizza and beer at his place.

"_Black Star_," Soul growls, slamming his pillow over his head. "Get out! I'm not in the mood!"

"You? Not in the mood for pizza and _beer_? Dude, you've been hanging out with Maka waaaaay too much! I'm sorry for leaving you with her like that, bro, but when you're done cleaning out your pocket protector, meet me outside, yeah?"

Soul snarls and throws his pillow at Black Star, who catches it with a look of surprise. "Black Star, get the hell out! I'm serious, I'm not in the mood for fuckin' beer and pizza! Maybe next week!" He lies back on his side, glowering at the wall, and it's silent for a second.

"…Hey," Black Star begins, not shouting for once. "I've only seen you this pissed off _three times_ and one of those times had to do with Maka."

"This has nothing to do with her."

"My ass it doesn't."

Soul does not deign to respond.

"What'd she do? Did she finally decide to get herself a _boy_friend because you were _too slow?" _Black Star waits for him to take the bait but he does not rise to it. Maka wasn't kidding when she told him Soul had been off recently. After a second, he sighs and kicks the door closed behind him. "Dude?"

Silence.

"Dude, seriously?"

Soul rolls his own eyes but stays silent.

"Are we _seriously _gonna' do this?"

Soul snorts derisively.

"Fuck."

Black Star's brow twitches but, before he could lose his temper, he takes a huge breath and says, "Alright, you wanna' know something? I've known Maka since were _kids_. She's practically my sister—hell, she pounds on me like one. I mean, she's a total nerd and she was a pain in my ass when we were younger, but she never gave up on me. She and Tsubaki. Maka always got on my ass about graduating high school and Tsubaki always calmed me down enough to think things through," Black Star takes seat at the edge of Soul's bed. Soul doesn't move a muscle, staring at his sheets now. "Thing is, Maka doesn't know when to give up. She's worse than me when it comes to losing. S'why we get along—she's tough, like me. She'd do whatever she can to succeed because failure? Man, that shit _kills her_. You know how broken up she was when Crona got sent to the loony bin?"

"Yeah," Soul finally replies, heaving a sigh. He sits up, ruffling his hair tiredly. He reclines against his headboard. "She was miserable for a while after that."

"Bet you one hundred she still messes herself up inside over it. Thinking like 'if I had done this' or 'if I had only not let her walk home that day'. You know why she hasn't gone over the deep end? Coz you're there to tell her she's screwing up. She doesn't let herself get too far coz if she does, that means leaving you."

"Maka doesn't _need_ me, Black Star. You said it yourself: she's tough," he says, scornfully.

"No, no, you don't get me. You—you, dude, man, Tsubaki explained this better yesterday," Black Star curses. He can't remember her reasoning word for word but he knows it _made total sense, he promises._ "Arghh! Dammit!" Black Star admits he's not thoughtful enough for any of these deep conversations. The only reason he was attempting was because Tsubaki had _pleaded_ he try with those big blue eyes of hers. Else, he would have totally just left the instant Soul threw his pillow at him. Pep talks were not his thing; fists and a few violent words were. "What the hell does this have'ta do with me?"

"What?"

"C'mon, something happened between you two and I'm involved somehow. Maka said you were pissed at me except we haven't talked in like three weeks coz I was busy so what'd I do _now_?"

"It's not _you."_

"Then?! Coz if we don't get out of here like bros, Maka is gonna' beat me up! I have to take my passport photo tomorrow! I can't go with a black eye!"

Soul sighs loudly, looking over at him. He sighs again, even louder this time, and scrubs his face with his hands. He can feel stubble; he hasn't shaved in two days. It won't be long before he's growing out a beard and everyone starts getting on his ass with the grandpa jokes. "I'm sleeping with Maka."

Black Star's eyes widen with glee. "SCORE!" He raises his hand for a high five but his grin falters at Soul's dark look. "She dump you?"

"No, you idiot, I mean, I'm _sleeping with Maka_ and we're not together!"

"…_Ohh._" He pauses and then looks up at Soul in a new light, jaw tight and eyes dark. "Soul, what are you tryin' to say? That you're playing with her?" He immediately stands up, back rigid. "Soul, you're my best bro and all, but if you're _playing her, _there won't be _shit _left when I'm done with you—!"

"No, I'm not playing her! Jesus—we're—she asked me to!" Soul groans at his skeptical look. "I mean, it was supposed to be a stress reliever, alright? She was really stressed lately and wasn't talking to me. She was staying inside all the time, she felt depressed, she sorta'—!"

"Set everyone to the side," Black Star fills in. Yeah, he had been wondering about that slump Maka had fallen into all those months ago. She bounced back, so he hadn't thought much of it, but he didn't think the reason she had bounced back was because of _this. _

Soul blows out a flat breath. "I was _going_ to talk to her about it when I overheard Liz telling Maka that if she—had sex, it might help a lot. She threw around a lot of health sites, statistics and how the endorphin rush could get rid of her stress. It sounded like a last-resort kinda' thing. Apparently, Maka was in over her head with that law program and she was cracking. She didn't tell me about it, she didn't wanna' burden me with it," Soul adds, reluctantly.

"So Liz said she should sleep with you!" Black Star brightens.

"No," Soul deadpans, sending him a look. "_Liz_ told her hooking up with someone could help and she was joking when she said me or—_you_ or someone else but Maka didn't like the idea at first. I thought she would make Liz drop it, except she kept asking _questions_—like how to _ask _for that, the risks, if Liz had done it before, that sort of thing. Long story short, before she could…._ask_ someone else, I mentioned that I'd do anything to help her."

"Sooo _anything_ meaning she asked you if you could sleep with her?" Black Star asks, mind blown. "I didn't think she'd have the balls to ask for that. She always got so squeamish whenever we cracked dirty jokes."

"Black Star, we both know Maka's got bigger balls than either of us," Soul snorts, able to recall at least three instances where Maka's courage outlasted any of their friends. Maka was amazing in more ways than one.

Black Star nods sagely in agreement.

"But it didn't start off that way when we decided on this. We just agreed to…" Soul hesitates here, cocking his head down meaningfully.

Black Star grins wolfishly. "Heh. _Eater_ gets a new meaning, eh?"

"Shut up. It was supposed to stay that way. Except it didn't."

"Okay, so now you're sleeping with Maka, which is pretty sweet for both of you since you've had it out for each other since we were, like, fifteen. But what does this has to do with _me_?"

"I told you, it _doesn't_," Sou hunches over, bitter. "It has to do with what _Maka'll_ do after she decides she's _done_ with me coz I can't keep my feelings outta' it."

To his surprise and bitterness, Black Star guffaws. He literally bends over and muffles his cackling in his knuckles, ignoring Soul's steadily mounting ire. "Are you _serious_—this is what has you in such a bad mood? Oh, man, and here I thought _I_ was a dumbass," Black Star sucks in air, face red from laughter. "Soul, bro, man, _amigo_," he slings an arm over Soul's shoulder, grinning ear to ear. "Lemme' let you in on a little _secret_. Maka's like my sister—she basically _is. _Y'know what older brothers do to little sisters? They nose around their shit and guess who came upon her hiding spot for her diary—or should I say, her poetry books?" He grins wickedly at Soul's wide eyes. His friend had hit _jackpot_; Soul hasn't seen a trace of her books since they were sixteen or so. "She's got three whole notebooks _this thick_," he holds out two fingers sizably wide, "full of _sappy love_ _poems_. Shitty ones, super corny ones, but they've gotten better since high school. They're still kinda' emo but _a lot _better. One time, I used one of 'em on Tsubaki except she found out it was Maka's and said she'd tell if I didn't stop reading through 'em," he mutters, sourly. "Lame…"

"Black Star," Soul interrupts, swallowing. His stomach is all in knots; it was obnoxious and totally uncool, the hope he felt well up inside of him. He remembers when he first found one of her notebooks, how she'd flushed so red and screeched at him to unhand it immediately; how he'd teased that, what, was she writing sappy poems about _him?_ and she'd whacked him with her book-bag before he could really get a look at her panicked eyes. "What do Maka's poetry books have to do with me?"

Black Star's grin is positively feline. "Coz all her poems? They're about _you_. All three notebooks worth."

It was really, _truly _uncool how it felt as if a weight had been lifted off his chest.

* * *

><p>"Are you done yet?"<p>

"I just opened the book, Soul!"

"I'm _bored_," he whines and when he reaches over to grab her waist, Maka pokes her finger to his forehead to hold him back. Her green eyes catch his and they glimmer for a second, Soul wants to say they glimmer with _affection_, before she's knocking him onto his side.

"Later, I have to finish six chapters of this by tonight."

"Sparknote it."

"Soul!" Maka squawks, appalled.

Soul rolls his eyes. "Maka, c'mon, it's not the end of the world if you sparknote a few chapters."

"My professor would know instantly if I did," Maka sniffs, giving him an affronted look. "There's just some things sparknotes can't give you!"

He gives her a sly look instead. "So you _have _thought about it."

Maka sputters and he snorts, rolling onto his back and yawning widely for show.

"_Amateur_," Soul jeers.

"Humph. Slacker," she mumbles before returning to her textbook.

He's comfortable just lying in the same bed as her—he's comfortable anywhere she is, now that he thinks about it. _This was a bad idea, _Soul thinks as he gazes at the ceiling. He wants to help her; of course he did. He wants her to be _happy _first and foremost. But he also wants to know how it felt to have her, like this, so close, skin-to-skin with her sobbing his name in his ear as she came, with the knowledge that they were together; an item, a couple, a pair, _partners_, he didn't care for the term, he just wanted to be able to _say it _and have her smile when he did. It was both selfish and selfless. Soul stops thinking about it before he can twist it around and guilt himself into cutting this off.

Black Star's words don't help, either.

_She's always written those sappy poems, though. Therapeutic or whatever she called it. S'not like it's a secret. I always teased her about 'em when we were younger, _Soul thinks, glancing over at Maka. She flips through another page in her book. She had a pencil case and some highlighters out by her hand and every so often, she'd pick a color and highlight something in the text. _I didn't think anything about them—I didn't even know she still wrote them. _But if she still wrote poetry and her major theme was him, he was very interested in seeing how she saw him.

He wonders if it's the same way he sees her.

Soul watches her take notes in her book for the next two hours while in and out of sleepy thoughts, of wonders as to what she would do if he ran his palm over the curve of her panty-clad ass, if he asked her about her poem book, if he told her he's written some songs about her for class with no one being any wiser. Other times he dozes off beside her, on his side, his boxers hanging low on his hips from their earlier fooling around.

"Is your brother coming home tonight?" Maka asks when he's half-asleep.

"Yeah—'round ten," Soul answers sleepily.

"Why so late?"

"Meeting or somethin'."

"How is he doing? I haven't seen him in a while."

"S'alright," Soul blinks away sleep, glancing over at her. "He's always bringing his work home with him, but it doesn't look like it bugs him. He's the same as you last saw him: annoying and grossly polite."

"Hmmm…still, it must be tough being appointed VP straight out of college," Maka muses.

Soul closes his eyes. "He doesn't mind—Wes'll do anything dad asks."

Maka's eyes are soft and sympathetic.

Soul doesn't want to look at them so he stares at the ceiling again.

"What does your dad think about you majoring in music?"

"Usual," Soul bites back. This was a topic they didn't breach often, but when they did, Maka always got him to talk a little more than last time. "Waste of money. Waste of time. Says I should've gotten into business and my brother shoulda' gotten into music. 'It's all backwards'," Soul mocks his father. "'You can't even read a fuckin' sheet without messing up'."

"You're passing all your classes with high marks, right?" Maka frowns, feeling her heart weigh for him. She always made sure Soul kept up with his grades, always encouraged him when he felt like dropping everything. Despite what he always said, Maka knew Soul valued his father's opinion and it doesn't help that, despite Soul's success, his father remained tight-lipped about everything. "What else does he want? You've already proved yourself!"

"_Wes_ to graduate with the music major, get a record deal _like he did when he was twenty three_, sell millions, then share the money with the family so we can all retire in Kent," Soul sneers, words drenched in sarcasm. He rolls over, back to her. "Finish your homework. I'ma nap."

"…I'm done!"

He cracks an eye open, brows furrowed. "What—!" He wheezes when she jumps on him unexpectedly, digging her bony knee into his lower back. "Ouch—fuck, Maka, what the hell—_Makaaaaa_," he whines when she giggles, sitting on his back as he sends her a flat look from beneath his bangs. "You're _not_ done, you liar, don't go putting shit off coz of this. Look, it doesn't matter what he thinks—hasn't, for a while," Soul sighs, gently nudging her off. She refuses to budge and he gives up.

"It's not right," she tells him, stubbornly. Her hands massage his neck gently and he closes his eyes. "You're passing all of your classes and your—all of your professors always tell me how they like your music! They really think you're going to make it somewhere, Soul, they're always so excited!"

Soul perks up at this. "They are?"

"Especially Professor Buttataki!"

"What? No way," Soul frowns. "He's never given me a compliment and the highest grade I've gotten from him is a B."

Maka grins down at him. "He tells me he likes how you're cooperating with others—he _might _have told me he's thinking about including you in the recital at the end of the semester…_if_ you keep working with them, that is!" Maka squeals when Soul suddenly shoots up, grabbing her around her waist to keep her steady.

"Hey, don't joke about that, the winners get scholarships for grad school and a chance to have our music tried at my uncle's label," Soul warns her. His uncle had expressed interest in his music, but Soul had never dared to show him any of his work. He doesn't want his family pulling some strings to get him signed in; he wants to be signed in because he's _actually good._

"I'm not joking! Your professors like talking to me," she pouts. Maka sometimes hung around the music department to wait for Soul after classes and they all knew her by name, somehow. They all had this gleam in their eyes, this quiet smile as they spoke to Soul about her—as they told her she was a good friend for him, they made a good team; she kept his morale up when things got hard, that sort of thing.

Good partners.

"The _hell_ for—professor Buttataki hasn't even _seen_ me with you!"

Maka grins, triumphantly. "Even your _professors_ think I'm the one making you finish your homework! And Kilik may have told them about me," she adds, sheepishly, giggling when Soul growls playfully and pushes her against his bed. This is a perfect chance to crush his lips to hers, slide his tongue between pink lips to swallow her cute mews with his own. Instead, breathing hard, heart swelling with love for her, he lowers his lips down her soft neck in quiet appreciation, shifting so she's propped up on her side and he's leaning over her, pushing her hair out of her face with every open-mouthed kiss he plants on her neck.

He pulls up and sticks his tongue out at her. "You taste like sweat," and chortles when Maka flushes red and screams furiously at him. He's laughing loudly when she pounces on him and they both roll off his bed. "Maka, I was kidding, it's not that bad!"

"You jerk! I took a shower this morning!"

He leers down at her. "Can't tell."

"SOUL!"

"Let's take a shower right now," Soul suggests, abruptly. He can't take it back; it's out there now. He hides his reddening cheeks by sniffing his armpits "I smell—I haven't showered since last night," he grins when she groans about his hygiene. "At least I'm not like Black Star. He goes _days _without a shower sometimes."

Maka makes a face. "Boys are gross."

"Yeah, yeah." Soul pulls himself up before helping Maka up. He's tugging off his shirt in that boy way of his, lifting it by the sides, up and over his head, when he pauses by the bathroom door. He glances over his shoulder, Maka is standing right where he left her, awkwardly. He cocks his head. "You coming?"

"Y-you really want me to shower with you?" Maka squeaks out.

"Yeah—not like we haven't seen each other naked before, right?" Soul reasons. "I don't see anything wrong with it."

"But, I don't have any spare clothes…"

"You can wear your skirt again and I can loan you a shirt of mine," Soul shrugs. "Or….you can spend the night," he adds coolly, but she catches the way his Adams apple bobs in his throat nervously. She had spent the night over many times though most of those she'd slept in the guest bedroom. Recently, he'd been sharing his bed with her, considering they usually had sex before _actually _sleeping.

But it was still a weird thought, to be invited to spend the night…so calmly, like this, not just because Maka was too exhausted to leave at night.

"A…alright."

His shoulders relax and he tosses her one of his charming lopsided smiles before turning to his bathroom.

Maka manages to unlock her frozen limbs and tries to push down the urge to smile. "Right. It's just a shower," Maka repeats, more to herself than him. "_Just_ a shower," she gulps, staring at the door he walked through not five seconds ago.

He's already in the stall by the time she undresses and when she closes the bathroom door behind her, the water is running hot and steam pours from the cracked shower door. Maka takes a breath, calming her pounding heart, and slides the glass door open.

Soul's hair looks differently wet—it's longer, falls straight down in a gray sheet. Maka has a hard time looking away from the stream of water running down his strong back, his legs. His shoulders look broader under this foggy light; the sight makes her throat tighter, her chest tight with anxiety and something else—something she dimly recalls as affection, but deeper. By the time she's toeing the water, Soul slicks his hair back and grins mischievously at her.

"What're you waiting for?"

"W-wait—Soul, NO, DON'T YOU DARE!" Maka screeches when he drags her under the shower, her body sliding over his in a desperate attempt to turn up the cold water. She slips and he grips her tightly, laughing into the stream as she roars: "IT'S HOT—HOW CAN YOU SHOWER WITH _HOT_ _WATER_, SOUL, IT'S PRACTICALLY BOILING!" She reaches for the knob and turns up the cold water, sighing in relief when the water cools but now Soul is clutching her to him in a different way, shivering.

"Fuck, its freezing!"

"No, it's _warm_!"

"It's freezing, Maka, turn it up!"

"No—ew, get away, all your sweat is rubbing on me!"

Soul makes a grab for the knob, ignoring her protests, and turns up the hot water just a little.

"It's too hot!" Maka grouses, hiding behind him. Soul just rolls his eyes and grins when she jabs her finger into his side.

They come to a compromise after much bickering—slightly warmer than Maka likes, but not scalding—and Soul quiets her grumbles when he squeezes a glob of shampoo into his palm and lathers her hair, ignoring her kitten growls. She takes over soon after and tells him to clean up, too, before they waste any more water. Then it's really just a shower—with her scrubbing herself clean while he brushes his teeth idly, Maka conditioning her hair as Soul scrubs himself clean, Maka shaving her legs while Soul soaks up the warm water.

"You can get out if you're done," Maka tells him, sitting on the tile while he sticks his face under the stream. "I still need my other leg."

"I'm good," is all he says, rubbing his face now.

Her eyes fall down his lean chest, stomach, then down to his limp member—not hard, different than how she usually sees it, and then looks back up at his face. There's a faint smile clinging to his lips and suddenly she's hit with such a strong surge of affection for him that she has to catch her breath. She swallows down her feelings, ignores her pounding heart, and tells herself that she'll dump her fondness for him in her poetry book—just like all the other times, all the other years. She'll write out her feelings and, for a bit, she'll be fine and she can ignore the heartache that comes with being in love with your best friend.

She finishes shaving her second leg and rubs the residue soap off with the light pool of water beneath her. When she tries to get up, a hand appears in front of her. Soul helps her up and presses her closely to him and Maka doesn't have to ask what he wants when he slides an arm around her, fingers clutching her hip, his leg slipping between hers as he leans back against the shower door. His eyes are dark, familiar and heated, and Maka leans against him with a curling smile.

"They're really smooth," he comments idly. She presses her cheek against his chest and lets her freshly shaven legs slide over his a few times. She's sure Soul doesn't shave his chest, but he doesn't have much hair to begin with. He's never really grown out much facial hair, now that she thinks about it, and when she reaches up to touch his cheek, there is only a hint of stubble there—unseen by the eye, unnoticeable unless she touches him or—

Maka doesn't dare move. The shower stream runs behind them, the air thick in her lungs; welcomed, because this is how she feels every time she's with him. Like her lungs can't gasp in enough air. When he gently pulls her hand down to his neck, Maka tenses when he replaces it with _her _cheek and suddenly she can feel his stubble just as intimately as she can feel his breath in her ear.

"What're you thinking about?" he asks, huskily.

"I—just wondered, how you've never had that much facial hair," Maka swallows when he lets out a puff of laughter. She reddens. "You never have, right? Even now, I didn't notice until I touched your face!"

Only Maka could caress his cheek like that for something as simple as testing out how much stubble he had. Soul's fondness deepens and he cups her ass, heaving her up a little. She can feel his hardening cock slide up her tummy and Maka's loins throb at the sensation, her arms coming up to wrap around his neck. Her leg hooks around his thigh and she shivers, Soul bringing them under the warmth of the stream again.

It's blurry when it happens—trails of water have her blinking often.

He's breathing hard when it happens—the thick, damp air between them makes his breathing shallow, then heavy and loud in his ears.

She tastes the water on his lips first and only hesitates for a second before she stands on her toes and presses her mouth more firmly against his. She has her eyes shut tightly and she's quakes for a different reason, her flushed chest heaving against his, hard nipples rubbing against his chest enough to send a jolt of warmth down to her womb.

His mouth his warm and pliant beneath her lips and it moves against hers gently at first, before they come together harder, faster, and then he's prying her mouth with his tongue and she's eagerly opening it, welcoming him, letting her soft moan vibrate into his chest as he reciprocates and knees her throbbing core.

Maka rocks against his knee, moves an arm down to his lower back to press him closer against her—so that his hard cock slides between them every time she slides against his knee. She feels him twitch and she whispers his name, raking her nails down his back in impatience. He kisses her one last time before he lets her go and her breaths are deep, gasping ones—like she hasn't breathed in hours, like she's drowning. She trembles when he whispers her name against her ear because it's more intimate than what she's used to.

Everything they are doing suddenly seems much too private, sensual in a different way. She trembles when he strokes the hair down her back with an tenderness not usually expressed. Her heart is a knot in her throat, her mouth full of words she can't tell him yet, building, building, and _building_ in her throat until she swallows. She stands on her toes and molds her mouth against his again and hopes for the best.

He takes it—all of her, swallowing the words that have become moans and answering in heady groans of her name that make her toes curl. Maka pulls back suddenly and buries her nose under his chin, eyes wide, blood draining when she realizes they're crossing a different line now—this one is definitely bad, Maka panicks, _this was the last line they weren't supposed to cross and yet—_

Soul groans her name and nudges down, capturing her mouth with his again.

"W—wait," Maka muffles out, gripping his sides. "Soul!"

"Why?" He murmurs against her lips and she feels the flush reach her chest.

"It's not right," she manages without stuttering and then regrets it when he flinches away from her as if burned. _No, that wasn't what I meant! _She curses and tightens her arms around him before he can completely let her go. "No—I meant—this complicates _things_."

"Complicates things _how?_" His arms remain by his sides.

"We're just friends!" Maka states and it echoes through Soul's spacious bathroom like an omen. Maka hates it. She lets her forehead hit his chest in frustration. She needs to get the words out or else they will never get anywhere and, as much as she's terrified of ruining their friendship, she knows this can't go on—not when she's treating him like her boyfriend, always so eager to drop by his house, to drag him to hers, to sit by him just because _they can. _She hasn't been treating him like a friend for a long time, even before they initiated this _thing _between them.

"It's not fair for you," she declares, forlornly. "It hasn't been fair for you for a long time. I'm sorry."

"Wha—what are you talking about, Maka?" Soul finds his voice, utterly confused. "What hasn't been fair?"

"_ME_—this entire thing!" Maka sighs sharply. "Soul, it hasn't been fair to you since high school! Everyone thought we were _dating_ back then when we weren't!"

"They did?" Soul coughs, looking somewhat guilty because he had an idea of _why_. He never outright _heard_ those rumors. He just knew that everyone believed there was something _going on _between them, which there clearly was on his end and it must have showed—even back then. He doesn't want to think about _now._

"Yes, and I didn't do anything to stop it," Maka admits, ashamed. Soul's brows scrunch together. "I just encouraged it because I _liked_ being with you but it wasn't _fair _to you because there were a lot of really nice girls who wanted to be with you but I—if you dated any then you wouldn't hang out with me anymore so…" she looks at the tile guiltily. "I didn't stop it. Even when there were rumors about you…sleeping with some girls, I just made you spend more time with me," she bites her lip, hiding her bitter eyes by pressing her cheek against his collarbone. She might have even hit him more often because of that, Maka thinks with a wince.

"…You were jealous."

"NO, I WASN'T!" Maka immediately defends.

"Ah," he suddenly says, eyes widening a fraction. "I get it." He's gazing at the ceiling tile in wonderment and her face darkens two shades.

"I wasn't j-jealous, I was just…_irritated_," she defends and he raises his brows in that incredulous manner of his—the one that told her _are you serious, Maka, just listen to yourself _and Maka glares up at him in challenge, kicking his shin until he got rid of that expression. "I _was_."

"That's still not being unfair."

"It is. I was being selfish," Maka concludes, dropping her eyes away from him.

"We had choices—both of us," he adds, meaningfully.

Her words feel raw, bitter, like nettles being dug into the tender flesh of her throat when she says, "We should break this off."

"No."

"But—!"

"I don't want to break it off for something as dumb as this," Soul interrupts, holding her again now. He presses their slick bodies together tightly enough that she can feel every time he inhales. "If you were being unfair, then I was being unfair, too. There were a lot of guys who wanted to date you in high school," he tells her with a shrug, eyes decidedly blank. "Even for a huge dork like you, when you joined the drill team, guys started to notice you. They always asked me if I was going out with you since we were always together," Soul looks at her finally. "I never said yes, but I never said no, either."

"You—then the reason everyone thought we were dating was because you were giving everything that idea—!" Maka gasps, emerald eyes rounding.

Soul barely looks repentant. "…Yeah. Oops."

Maka purses her lips, pinching his back.

"Ow—dammit, if you dated any one of those guys, we…you wouldn't have time for my anymore, too! You barely had time with your homework and drill rehearsals," he grouses. "And remembering to _eat_ and all those competitions and then you joined the goddamn _Academic Decathlon_ so I joined when you asked coz we barely hung out anymore... If you had a boyfriend, it'd make it impossible for me to ever talk to you," he argues. "So, we were both being unfair."

"At the same time?"

"Seems like it," Soul shrugs. "Though I would have let you date whoever you wanted in any case. Just…not that easily." He pushes his wet hair back. His neck is warm—pink, she notices, and when she looks up, it's because his face is warm, too. "I just want you to be _happy_."

There's a flash of guilt on her face after he says that and it's not what he wants—he doesn't want her to turn this on herself, to confuse selflessness with his love for her, but he only manages to say her name before there's a knock on his bathroom door.

"Hey, Soul," Wes shouts, "Stop singing about Maka and tell me what topping you want on the pizza! And if you want hot wings or not!"

"I'm not SINGING," Soul snaps.

"What _toppings?"_

"Uh, pepperoni and, crap what's that called…Maka? The green things?" He whispers, looking down at her expectantly.

"Green peppers," Maka deadpans. Really, where would he be without her? She thinks, ruefully.

"And green peppers!" Soul echoes. "And _two_ orders of hot wings!"

"Alright—hurry up, would you, I wanted to discuss some vacation options. Mother wants to go on another family excursion—you can probably bring Maka if you ask nicely, I know how _sad _you get when she's not with you for more than a week," Wes chuckles and Soul wants to strangle his idiot brother. This is _not_ the time to bring her up, not when he has her naked body hugged to him and her inquisitive green eyes boring holes into him.

"I'm gonna' punch you, Wes, just go!" Soul growls and only when his bedroom door shuts does Soul slump against the shower door, scowling as he reminds himself to punch his brother before the night is over. "Ma—!"

"Let's get dressed," Maka says instead. He lets her go and regrets not ignoring his brother. He really hopes this doesn't mess up what they were on the brink of. "You know how Wes is. He'll come back if we take long."

He opens his mouth, but instead sighs.

Soul lets her use his towel and he peeks out of the bathroom before walking to his closet for a spare. Maka stays in the bathroom while he towels off outside and by the time Maka comes out, towel wrapped tightly around her slim body, Soul is already in boxer briefs and is tugging a black t-shirt over his head. He hesitates when she sits on the edge of his bed.

"Uh…are you staying or…"

Maka stiffens. "Maybe I should go," she mumbles. "It sounds like your brother needs to talk to you for a while. I can go out the back if you want."

But he doesn't want that. He doesn't want her to sneak out of his house like a dirty secret. He wants her to walk down the stairwell beside him, for his brother to greet her with that model smile of his before saying something uncalled for—for her to giggle and he to growl and Wes to smile as if nothing were wrong. He wants her to be _part_ of his family, not excluded, and the only way to do that is to bring it all back again.

"Quit blaming yourself, you didn't do anything wrong," Soul tells her, holding her gaze when she looks up.

"You're my best friend and I've basically kept you all to myself!" Maka insists, like that's a bad thing.

"Maka, we both had choices," he repeats, placidly. "I _wanted _to be with you. Do you seriously think I would have stayed if I didn't want to?"

She parts her lips, then closes them. He's right; he's never really been keen on bending his back for others, much less people he didn't care for. If he really didn't want to be with her, she knows he would have made it known very clearly.

"Y'know better than anyone that if I don't want to be there, I won't." His eyes are light and it makes her heart pound. They read her mind in that way he does sometimes. "I like being with you and you can't be unfair to someone who likes being with you."

He's right again. He _does _like being with her, but—Maka's eyes widen.

"Do you know why I like being with you so much?" Soul asks, softly.

Maka looks up, doe-eyed. "B…because I'm your best friend?" The look on her face tells him that she knows better. He reaches for one of his softer sleep shirts before he answers:

"Black Star's my best friend, too."

"I'm your _real_ best friend," she clarifies and he grins a little.

"Don't let him hear that." He walks over and hands her his shirt. Maka takes it, fisting it in her hands. "Do you?" He asks again.

Maka nods rapidly instead and smothers his shirt over her mouth when he bends over, leveling their eyes. His lips quirk into a smile and when he draws closer, Maka grumbles his name in warning and her hairline is red. Soul grins and he grabs her wrist, tugging it down, but she just mushes her face against his shirt to hide her huge, _dumb_—

"You're smiling," Soul teases, pressing their foreheads together and pulling both her arms down from her face. She growls his name. He slips a hand under her chin. Her growl isn't very convincing, not when her voice wavers like that, and once he manages to pull his shirt from her face, his cold cheek cools her red one and then his lips are on hers and she's muffling his name out between them.

Their kisses are chaste but her cheeks remain red. He smiles, kneeling in front of her and pulling her down to meet his lips properly. He's massaging the space under her breast when the door opens.

"Soul, are—!" Wes stares and Maka screams, kicking Soul away and tightening the towel around her body protectively.

"Dammit, Wes, WHY CAN'T YOU KNOCK?" Soul snarls, sending Wes a vicious glare that does nothing to diminish his brother's bright smile.

"Makaaaa!" he greets, absolutely delighted. "You're—!" Wes looks her over quickly. That was most definitely his brother's towel and her hair was most _definitely_ wet. So Soul had not, after all, been talking to himself in the shower. "—_not_ decent. I'll leave." He slams the door shut and Soul buries his face in his palms because _now _his brother will truly, really, never let him live this down. He got enough crap about his obnoxious mustard yellow shoes and varsity jacket from middle school.

Wes doesn't know how to let his teenage self live down awful fashion choices.

"Soul?" Maka prods his foot with her toe and when he looks up flatly, she's slipped on his shirt and was tugging it down her thighs to no avail. It keeps scrunching back up. Her breasts peak clearly and he glances over the pile of clothes at the corner of his bed. But first, pants.

"You can use these," Soul crawls back a little and digs around one of his lower cubbies for some of his looser boxer shorts. He decides on some dark gray ones and Maka slips them on as she's walking towards him, holding out her hand like he did to her in the shower.

"Are you still staying?" he asks, hesitantly. He keeps his distance even though he'd rather be holding her.

"Yeah!" and she smiles timidly when Soul grins down at her. He pokes her breast teasingly, murmuring against her temple, "I don't mind, but Wes expected us downstairs a _minute_ ago," and she slaps his hand away with a huff before grabbing her bra.

"_SOUL! MAKA! PIZZA'S HERE!" _comes Wes' voices from, blessedly, downstairs.

He looks over his shoulder expectantly and Maka hurries over, pausing only to grab his wrist in order to lead him along. The door slams a little louder than necessary and if he muffled his dumb grin in the back of her shoulder, no one is any wiser as they walk downstairs and find Wes placing the final cup on the dining table.

"Good evening, Maka," Wes greets her, same as always. There isn't anything that tells her he had walked in on his brother and his best friend locking lips. "Soul—_ahah_, haven't eaten yet, huh?" He grins when Soul immediately grabs four slices in one go.

"Not since noon," he manages around a mouthful of pizza.

Wes sighs. "Another habit you must curb. Eat properly, Soul, it's good for your health!"

Soul doesn't reply, only eats more.

"Also, mother can't know about the pizza—she wants us to cut back on calories, so that means you better finish all of it!" Wes warns, handing Maka two slices. He just smiles blithely at her embarrassed thanks. "I haven't seen you in a while. How are your classes going, Maka?"

"Good," Maka answers, too quickly. She takes a breath and adds in a calmer tone, "If I pass my midterms, I can't fail any of my classes, basically. The midterm is graded higher than the final."

"I'm sure you did great."

"I bet a B," Soul quips and dodges her kick.

"If we're placing bets then I bet you got a C for Buttataki," Wes smirks.

Soul sends his brother a sour look. "Uncool, I'd be lucky if I get a _B_. He needs to loosen up."

"It's university—he's setting a standard," Maka argues.

"Too high," Soul grumps, pushing his cup of soda to Maka while Wes fills another. "Thanks."

Wes just smiles crookedly. It's when Maka's shoulders lose their tension and Soul is on his fifth hot wing that Wes drops the bomb: "So how long have you two been dating? I had _no_ idea. Literally _no_ idea," he accuses in that dangerous, cheerful way of his.

"Er—!" Soul swallows thickly, side-glancing Maka hastily. "We…about that—!"

"We're not dating," Maka answers for him. Her ears feel warm; Wes' curious cock of his head isn't helping.

"I'm quite certain that was you in the shower with him—that doesn't happen overnight," Wes presses, right again. Maka's sputtering doesn't convince otherwise and Soul is glowering at him in that dangerous way of his. "I'm just _curious _because, while I have noticed that you have been coming over more _frequently_ than usual, there was nothing else to signal any sort of change between you two!" He sighs dramatically. "Unless you're _not _dating and you're just fooling around behind our backs like teenagers. In which case, I _heavily_ disapprove…"

Maka's hangs her head guiltily.

"…_because_ Soul, Maka's the perfect addition to our family, why would you take such a _roundabout _way of introducing her to Mother and Father as your girlfriend?" Wes finishes, pretending not notice Maka's sharp intake of breath and Soul's long-suffering groan of his name. "Mother _loves her _already! How could you do that to her? All she wants is for one of us to tie the knot—do it, Soul, ask Maka right now!" Wes demands mock-serious, taking the box of pizza out of Soul's reach. "Ask her so I can tell Mother and she can leave me alone for another year!"

"You bastard," Soul's brow twitches, catching onto his prank fairly quick. "You just wanna' get out of getting hitched! Again!"

Wes only smirks. "I'm not ready for that type of commitment. You, on the other hand, have been for a while," he steals a glance at Maka, his smile widening when he finds her gazing up at her brother with wondrous eyes. His face becomes a little more serious. "But will you? This isn't short-term, is it? You've been friends for…quite a long time."

Soul tenses, wanting to say _no _but not wanting to put words in Maka's mouth. He looks down at her unsurely. "We haven't talked about it. Can we do this later?" Soul decides abruptly, not about to deal with his brother acting as a mediator _again_. Wes should have gone into therapy than business.

Thankfully, his brother isn't entirely cruel and takes a hint. "Oh, sure. I was just saying because you two have known each other a while and, well, you look good together. You work well together," he smiles at them both genuinely. "I really like Maka, and so does Mother."

"Yeah…" Soul trails off into a mumble, grabbing more pizza so he didn't have to talk. Maka feels closer than usual by his side and, when Wes is fiddling on his phone, he risks a glance at her. Her green eyes meet his instantly and he looks away, face hot, and feels her inch a little closer to him. Despite his racing heart, her proximity eases him.

The rest of their dinner is spent like all other dinners between the brothers and Maka: Wes aggravates Soul to the point of retaliation and then it's a game of chicken that neither back down from—at least until Soul brings up Wes' encounter with an _actual_ chicken when they were younger, wherein Wes instantly folds and give him a chilling smile that has Soul smirking but wisely quiet.

"I'm going to stay up a little longer," Wes yawns a while later, taking an empty hot wings and pizza box with him. "I'll be in the office if either of you need me. Maka's staying the night, right?" Not that he needs to ask: by the way she's dressed, it's obvious.

"Yeah—she's staying with me," is all Soul says, handing him the second empty box of hot wings. He's finishing the last wing when Wes walks back into the dining room, having gotten rid of all pizza-related evidence.

"Soul, if you hear the phone ring, don't answer it," Wes tells him with a weary look. "It's Father."

Soul makes a face. "What's he want so late?"

"The results of my first committee meeting," Wes exhales. "It went better than I expected, but I'm sure Father will be disappointed by the results. I still haven't finished crafting an excuse."

Soul shrugs.

"Not like Soul will hear it, anyway, he sleeps like the dead," Maka rolls her eyes, patting his shoulder as she heads towards the lobby, Soul in tow.

"But if he does…"

"Don't answer," Soul yawns. "Got it."

"Excellent! Good night you two!" Wes waves, taking the stairs by two and disappearing down the hall by the time they make it to the second flight. Soul runs ahead to his room to take the bathroom first, not about to commit the same mistake he did when Maka first stayed over. She took _forever_ in the bathroom and it was only because she took her sweet time. He has his teeth brushed and mouth washed when Maka _barely _grabs the tube of toothpaste, done with whatever else had been occupying her.

And it's normal—it's _so usual. _They fall back into a familiar pattern, _comfort_, and when Soul is lying on his back, his bed doesn't feel as big as before. His room doesn't feel like a field, cold and empty and _silent. _It feels right, fitting, and every other word he can think of to mean _home _and by the time Maka shuffles out of the bathroom, he decides he's not going to let this slip from his grasp—not like before, not when things look like they're going to go _right_ for him for once.

"I'll take this!"

Soul watches her snatch his pillow, probably because it was the softest. He lets out a small puff of laughter at her childishness before he turns his head back forward. He can't think of a way to really ask her? He's not sure how to go about it, he has never been very good with words. He's better with music and he can think of sixteen songs in that instant that would convey how much he can't picture himself without her, can think of all those pages where he has written her into his music without her knowing.

And then he knows how—knows how to ask her, the perfect way to ask her. It's been a thought that has floated around his mind for a while now, never quite taking off, but always there. And what better way, he wonders, than to take that step with her?

"Hey," he rasps, clearing his throat.

"Yeah?" Maka pauses, hand poised to flick off the light.

"I've been thinking about moving outta' here," he says, not giving her time to reply. "A friend of my mom told me he'd rent me a one-bedroom five minutes from U of D and I was thinking about working part-time at that jazz café down the block...""

There's a beat of silence.

"Wanna' room with me?"

The lights flick off and Soul is left staring at darkness—and for a split second _panic _envelops him and he's thinking of all the ways he could have _asked her to be with him _without it sounding so permanent, so scary, so downright idiotic—but then he feels her fingers touch for him hesitantly, then more confidently, and then she's crawling over him and resting her cheek against his chest and hooking her ankle under his knee as she cuddles into him like she's done this a thousand times.

"I'll pay half the rent," Maka says, suddenly. Soul's breathing stutters. "And we split the chores evenly, so one week you do laundry, another week I do laundry. Same with dishes, cleaning, cooking and everything—and, _no, _you can't invite Black Star to play video games with you unless Tsubaki is there to control him because if he _breaks _anything, I'll punch him _and _you!"

Soul grins widely and he's suddenly very, very relieved for the darkness. "If it's gonna' be like that, then your dad's not allowed twenty feet of the apartment, he'll fucking gut me when he finds out."

Maka muffles a laugh in his chest and he can feel her nose nuzzling down his collarbone and then she crawls forward a little more and he can feel her lips on his chin and he wraps his arms tightly around her back, hitching her forward so their lips meet properly—deeply, then deeper still until Soul is rubbing his palm up the arch of her back and Maka anchors her ankles under his legs, her hips grinding against him until he's a panting, whimpering, mess.

She grabs his shirt, pulls him up so he's resting on is elbows, and kisses him again, soundly, unlike she has ever done before, and before he can lose himself in Maka's heady, wet kiss—she pulls back just enough to shakily exhale his name, and only then is he aware that she's just as nervous about this proposition as he is.

"Can we be together?" He asks, sucking in a breath when she bucks her hips particularly hard against his. He pulls her down closer to him, groaning into the hollow of her neck. He wonders if this entire thing counts as a proposal—and figures no, it doesn't, not really, because Maka doesn't like the idea of marriage and he doesn't care a single bit about it. He decides he's just being honest.

"I thought we already _were_, idiot." He feels her hot cheeks against his shoulder and the way she holds him tells him she heard him loud and clear. "We can work out the details about the apartment tomorrow. Go to sleep, it's what your brother will least expect."

He smirks. "Ten bucks he'll barge in in half an hour because he suddenly 'remembered' something."

"One hour," she bets and he settles on his side with Maka curled comfortably against him and the quiet relief that they were lucky enough to be the ones to only need each other for happiness.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** All these other resbang fics have all this intricate plot and I just sorta' have this slice-of-life PWP fic to offer you guys! I hope you all liked it either way! Considering this fic was submitted for Resbang 2014, you can find naughty, naughty art for this fic by orangeblossomtea and calinyh on Tumblr! Check it out if you have some time, they're amazing artists!

Til next time!

_Scar. _


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